


for as long as you'd have let her.

by thewritermakingdreamsreality



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 17:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20568263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewritermakingdreamsreality/pseuds/thewritermakingdreamsreality
Summary: Spoilers for 3x03/3x04Nancy follows Lady Isabella into the drawing room to lend words of comfort after Lucy reveals that Charlotte was tuppin' Isaac Pincher.





	for as long as you'd have let her.

“I wouldn’t let her tuppin’ that Pincher boy bother ya,” Nancy Birch states quietly as she enters the drawing room, where Lady Isabella’s momentarily excused herself after escorting Justice Knox from St. James.

Hand darting to her chest, Isabella turns from her spot at the window. “Pardon?”

“I saw how Lucy’s words hurt ya.” Crossing the room, she stops beside Lady Isabella. She slips off a glove and reaches out to rest a hand on Isabella’s shoulder for comfort. But Nancy pauses, knowing what it’s like to be touched when all you want to do is crawl into yourself or out of yourself into a different skin. Instead, she slips on her glove and curls her hand around the birch handle at her side.

Lady Isabella looks at her with wide blue eyes, devastation crashing in their depths.

That devastation is all too familiar to Nancy. It comes with the curse of loving a Wells woman and having to let them go.

“And I know ya love her,” she keeps her tone low.

Lady Isabella’s nod is soft. She drops her eyes to her lap where she clasps her hands. “More than anything.”

“She loved ya.” Her words are of Charlotte, but Nancy’s mind wanders back to the lips of a different Wells, pressed tight to hers in dingy spaces after running from Lydia Quigley. Before Will and before Nancy knew what it meant to love Margaret Wells. “Let that be all that matters. Don’t let what Lucy said ruin what was between ya.”

“How can I not? I thought she, I thought we were happy together. I was. I was happy. I was free.” She glances up. Her face is pinched and eyes brimming with wetness, but her composure remains. She looks to the window.

Something about Lady Isabella’s silent strength clenches Nancy’s heart.

“Charlotte was poor. Had been her whole life. Ya gotta understand that in the life she led she was only ever coveted for one thing and it wasn’t her love. She would never have believed ya, never could’ve, that someone like ya, someone with the wealth that has always paid for the scraps on her plate could ever love her. Ya coulda told Charlotte a million times and part of her would always doubt. That just is what it is.”

Nancy pauses, Lady Isabella’s breaths are shallow gasps. Her eyes lock on the tremble of Isabella’s shoulders. She notes the way they’ve sunk.

“She loved ya, Charlotte did.” Nancy’s eyes burn, her own tears not far. This woman’s pain is her pain too. With Charlotte, with Margaret, Nancy knows it all and she feels it in her stomach and in the lump aching in her throat. She tightens her jaw, her own tears will not fall.

Lady Isabella’s powder is streaked with watery black tears when she turns back to the room. Her chin quivers and her eyes are lost. She sets them on Nancy and Nancy’s breath hitches at Lady Isabella’s torment.

“I’ve never seen Charlotte look at someone the way she looked at ya. That girl,” her voice cracks as tears well in her eyes, blurring Isabella’s sorrow with her own. “She would have loved ya for as long as you’d have let her.”

Nancy swipes at her own eyes, bringing Lady Isabella back into her view.

Charlotte would have loved Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam forever and Lady Isabella will love Charlotte Wells forever.

Nancy sees it plain as day in front of her.

“Come,” her voice is a hoarse whisper. Nancy extends a hand. “We must return to the parlor, to Charlotte. She needs us one last time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I am working on less sad (and longer) Isabella/Charlotte fics. I don't usually like to mention what I'm working on because there's always a chance that I won't finish it, but these last two moments I've written don't leave much room for hope, do they?


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